Teachers Pay Teachers: A Good Place To Find Resources Online?

I have a busy morning ahead, with school starting for me (six days of teacher inservice before the kids come back) in six more days, I'm trying to get some work done in my classroom.

What was on my mind this morning was the vast amount of teacher resources that are out there on the internet. Since I've begun running this blog, I've been posting many pages of links to resources, worksheets, and other documents. My focus has been on free resources, because as all of you know, things can start to add up quickly.

My thought is that if you find something that you like, but can't afford it (or, like me, are really frugal and would prefer to not spend anything), just tell yourself that you can find something similar on the internet, for free. This has served me pretty well. Yes, there are those rare occasions where you can't find a resource online, but if you're looking for worksheets, unit plans, videos, or games, there are millions online.

I have been browsing around Teacher Pay Teachers for some time. I like that you can buy things on there from teachers. If I'm going to spend money on a resource, I sure would prefer that money to end up in a teachers pocket as opposed to a publisher.

Not too many teachers have a positive view of the book publishers, and with good reason. $100 for a single social studies book? $400 per kid for the reading series? Yikes. School districts spend millions on these books and resources that ultimately just don't cut it, they're not good, and are just flash with no substance. Of course, sometimes these resources come in handy, and sometimes they are good, but millions of dollars worth of handy and good? I don't think so.

So back to Teachers Pay Teachers. I'm going to lay out some pros and cons of the site, but please, go find out for yourself:

TEACHERS PAY TEACHERS:

THE PROS:

• There are tons of resources, and they're organized by grade, subject, price, and even standards.
• You can download thousands of things there for free.
• If you decide to spend, your money goes to the teacher who posted the item.

THE CONS:

• The vast majority of the free offerings are of very low quality.
• Some of the resources are VERY over priced.

Ultimately, my view on Teachers Pay Teachers is the same as anything else. See if you can find it for free by searching in Google. If you can, good for you, if you can't, go ahead and buy it. You'll have the peace of mind in knowing that your money is going to help other teachers, and not line the already deep pockets of those publishing companies that most of us don't like anyways.